Dispensers have heretofore been devised for sequentially dispensing filters individually from a stack as exemplified by those despensers shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,269,324 and 4,339,057. The dispenser of the first mentioned patent comprises a storage compartment for holding a stack of inverted containers, and a dispensing arm or tongue that is rotatably driven by a hand crank so as to engage the member of the stack in proximity with the dispensing tongue and urge it off of the stack and out of the container. In the latter mentioned patent, a pin wheel is employed for releasibly gripping that member of a stack of filters in proximity with the wheel and for urging it off the stack and out of the dispenser.
Dispensers of the types just described have tended to be unreliable and unpredictable in operation. For example, they may remove one filter from a stack but then fail to pull it completely out of the dispenser. In other cases the filters tend to be ripped by the gripping elements employed. It all too frequently occurs that multiple filters are totally or partially dispensed simultaneously from the stack. In other cases it may take several operations of the dispensing mechanism before a member of the stack is properly dispensed. Worse still are those situations where the relatively fragile paper filters become crimped and jam the dispenser.
It thus is seen that a need remains for a dispenser for dispensing paper-like, cup-shaped containers, such as coffee filters, in a simple but consistent and reliable manner. It is to the provision of such a dispenser that the present invention is therefore primarily directed.